George Presses his Luck, lands in ‘Jeopardy!’… and more!

Posted on 24/03/2026 by Stephen

A ‘Press Your Luck’ Whammy, yesterday.

Hello and welcome back to our series of guest posts by game show veteran (on both sides of the camera!) George Long. When we left off last week, George had been serving as contestant co-ordinator and production assistant on Sale of the Century…

HOWEVER…

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GL: While all this was going on, I was also the question writer for a show that was new to the UK – Press Your Luck (featuring the Whammies!) It was to be broadcast on HTV (covering the South Wales and Bristol area, so I had to include questions about the local area), on a Thursday evening, directly against Eastenders – the Number One show in the UK at the time! The host was Paul Coia, who’d been the first voice heard on Channel Four when it was launched ten years earlier.

This job was going to be hard. The Executive in Charge of Production said we had a limited budget, that my question writing salary was expensive, and that they couldn’t afford for me to devote the same amount of time to writing and compiling as I did for Going for Gold...

And then, when I got the questions for the show, I was shocked at how Australian they were! I met with him to say I couldn’t have these in my name, or even on the show; we’d be a laughing stock – so many were about Australian history, politics, sport, television and Pop Music! (The Australian version of Press Your Luck, also produced by Grundy’s, had run prior to this, from 1987 to 1988 – SH.) I wanted to keep my job of course, so I said I’d be happy to write new questions in my own time to ensure the quality of my work wasn’t compromised. It was a deal.

The other problem was that Press Your Luck required THREE answers prepared for each question; the correct one, a close one (which could readily have been chosen), and a funny one! If a contestant gave an alternative answer, one of my two alternatives had to be dropped and replaced by theirs. I had to think quickly in the production box to select which one to drop. Keeping an obviously wrong ‘funny’ answer in the mix would mean it may have been obvious which answer was right. The girl operating the Aston machine (used to input text that’s displayed onscreen for the home viewers) had to be very fast at this point.

My favourite question I wrote was “Which famous ballerina gave her name to a famous dessert?”; the three answers being Alicia Markova, Anna Pavlova or Raisa Pudding. This was in 1992 when Mr Gorbachev was leader of the Soviet Union; his wife’s name was Raisa. The question got a huge laugh and Wally Mardell (mentioned in my earlier Going for Gold post) took me aside and told me my funny answers were fantastic and he couldn’t have done better himself. Thanks, Wally!

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My last role at Grundy’s was as question writer for Jeopardy! It was in its second series and was filmed at TVS Studios in Southampton, where I lived. The host was Steve Jones, a veteran presenter – very well known in the business – but there could have been another host… me! Because of my success hosting the Going for Gold rehearsals, I was asked to audition against many very well-known British TV names. I actually had to borrow a jacket for the audition (as it was going to be shown to ITV’s management team)! I was selected to go forward as Grundy’s choice but was not accepted as I was not a ‘name’, although they apparently thought I was really good. Steve was their choice as he had the chops, and he did a great job. I did the morning run-throughs again, and, as adjudicator, did get the odd onscreen mention of my name when I was asked whether we could accept an answer.

* * * * * * *

A spinoff book produced by the Burns & Porter team.

After Jeopardy! finished, there were no further shows in production, so all the production teams were laid off. I immediately got a job with Burns & Porter, a pub quiz operator – the largest in the UK. It wasn’t my cup of tea but I did make appearances at many Grand Finals as the question master, in addition to setting up the venues. I also appeared with one of the directors on a Live London area show about pub quizzes. Hosted by the late Magenta Devine and Paul Ross, who was the brother of (TV presenter) Jonathan Ross, and was married to ….. (Sale of the Century producer) Kerry Bunce!

Towards the end of my time at Burns & Porter, we got a contract with the BBC to write questions for a Sunday lunchtime segment on The Dave Lee Travis Show on BBC Radio One.

Radio One DJ Dave Lee Travis. FUN FACT: His nickname was “The Hairy Cornflake”. Hmm, can’t begin to imagine why…

The segment was called Give me a Break and was based on a snooker theme, with teams from all over the country answering questions. The questions varied in degrees of difficulty, with designations – like the snooker balls themselves – from red to black. It was a very popular show at the time and had a famous punchline when a wrong answer was given; “Quack Quack oops!” in an electronic sound. It became a bit of a national catchphrase in the UK.

My job was to check the proposed questions in a final edit before they were couriered to the BBC studios. Sometimes I had to quickly rewrite or re-assign them if I felt they were too easy or hard for the ball colour they’d been given. There were different questions for each round, dependent on the contestant’s choice of colour. It was often a very close shave to get them all ready for the courier, who on more than one occasion sat waiting in reception, whilst we printed them off yet again!!

As 1992 rolled around, I thought I had once again returned to my regular career – this time as an International Medical Assistance Coordinator for an insurance company, offering assistance to British and Irish travellers overseas. It was stressful but life-affirming work.

But before too long, the next quizzing opportunity came along… The old warhorse Mastermind, hosted by the venerable Magnus Magnusson.

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And to discover how that all turned out, join us back here at HowToWinGameShows.com next Tuesday afternoon!

See you then!

My EXCLUSIVE interview with game show winner (and TikTok sensation) Miles Glaspole – Part II

Posted on 22/10/2024 by Stephen

Miles Glaspole, on the set of ‘ Australian Mastermind’

Hello and welcome to Part Two of my four-part interview with Mastermind Australia Grand Champion – and TikTok 10 creator – Miles Glaspole. when we left off last week, Miles and I had just started chatting about writing quiz questions. (He’s written thousands of them, you know.)

Now read on…

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SH: What’s the secret to writing a good quiz question?

MG: Quiz questions are a test of your instant recall, but good ones tickle something Pavlovian as well, I reckon. They have to be one of three things: challenging, interesting, or heart-warming. Challenging ones give you a sense of achievement on figuring them out, interesting ones make you have that “wow” moment where you feel like you’ve learned something, and heart-warming ones are the ones that tug at nostalgia, the ones that make you think of something that makes you smile or laugh, or take you back to childhood.

There’s a fourth kind, which I think is fun in small doses: the troll question. The ones that make people question everything before hearing the answer then comment “I nearly threw my phone at a wall.” My favourite one of these that I’ve ever written was “In which country is Fiji Water *actually* produced?”

It’s Fiji. Where else could it have been?

SH: Argh! Are there any topics or subject areas that you return to often, when you’re writing questions?

MG: Like my dad I’m a huge lover of music, and extremely unlike my dad, I love all things pop music. Every era, every style from bubblegum to new wave. My dad’s a bit of a punk, anti-establishment etc. Some of my earliest memories are listening to the Kraftwerk album ‘Radio-Activity’. I love that album now, but my teenage rebellion was a Lady Gaga phase. Pop music is also a quick shortcut to heart-warming when question writing – every couple has their song, everyone has their comfort playlist. When I want to be really self-indulgent, I’ll write one about Eurovision or AFL. I didn’t do much AFL on TikTok (on account of the global audience) but it would occasionally find its way in there.

SH: What’s an example of a question you’ve written that you’re really proud of?

MG: One of the joys of writing for TikTok was being able to write questions about media/culture that simply doesn’t get on TV. Questions about up-to-the-minute music, memes, Internet creators. I think people who are more used to legacy media look down on Internet culture, but below a certain age, it’s the mainstream. A really cool side to bringing a legacy format to the internet was seeing TikTok, especially younger users, feel as though their favourite online media was just as worthy of a trivia question as Madonna or Emmanuel Macron. I’ve been in network TV quiz writing sessions where someone like Sabrina Carpenter was deemed too difficult for a show. To the TikTok crowd, that’s medium difficulty, at worst! And sometimes, if I asked about a fellow creator, their fans would tag them and say “Hey! You’ve made it!” These people would sometimes have millions upon millions of followers or views, but being a quiz question somehow gave them more legitimacy. That’s the power of quiz.

SH: Are there any specific rules that you follow when you’re writing quiz questions?

MG: Never make someone feel stupid. Quizzing is a test of recall, not intelligence. It’s a pet peeve of mine when people say that they’re not very smart because they’re not good at trivia when of course, that’s not true – good quizzers have a well-stocked filing cabinet, not a tidy office. So, a question should always have some sort of hook for someone to guess the answer – at worst a player should feel like they’re learning, not being punished for a lack of it.

SH: Have you ever written any questions that turned out to be controversial?

MG: A tricky aspect of TikTok was writing questions for a global audience. The US/UK/Aussie divide was particularly tricky at times – asking a question about “which girl’s name is also a standard traffic light colour” didn’t play well in the US, for instance. And pop culture isn’t universal. Another complicating factor was the “well I’ve always known it as…” people. A lot of people would ask if I got the questions from a website or something. No! I write and research them myself! And that isn’t necessarily well-understood. I asked “Which snack food is known in US slang as a goober?” and a lot of Americans came into my comments saying “Well I’ve never heard it that way.” Respectfully your opinion doesn’t matter Amanda, I checked it in dictionaries!!
… you might have poked a nerve, Stephen.

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Whoops – sorry about that, Miles. Okay, then maybe we should just take a break, have a little bit of a breather, and reconvene here next Tuesday afternoon. Sound good? Good, great, let’s just do that. Okay, I’ll see you then, then. Bye!

My EXCLUSIVE interview with game show winner (and TikTok sensation) Miles Glaspole – Part I

Posted on 15/10/2024 by Stephen

Miles Glaspole on the set of ‘Mastermind Australia’.

Hello and welcome to my latest exclusive interview. Apologies for my absence over the last few months, but during that time I’ve been busy recording three interviews with three very different and delightful game show winners, and I’m very pleased to bring the first one of these interviews to you today.

Back in June 2023, content creator Mile Glaspole became the fifth Grand Champion on Mastermind Australia, with his incredible knowledge of one of his many special subjects, ‘AFL Grand Finals from 2000 to 2022′. Then this year, he beat six distinguished contenders (including previous Mastermind Australia Grand Champions Troy Egglestone and William Laing) to take home the trophy in the Mastermind Australia Champions Week tournament!

I recently spoke to Miles about his TikTok phenomenon the TikTok10, about his quizzing, his TV game show adventures, and much more besides…

==================================================================SH: Miles, welcome! Thanks so much for speaking to me today for www.HowToWinGameShows.com! Now, I only met you very briefly on our Mastermind Australia record day back in February but I do feel I know you, through watching your appearances on the show and of course through your hugely popular daily quiz The TikTok 10… but I believe quizzing’s in your blood, isn’t it? Can you tell us about your parents’ involvement in the world of quizzing?

MG: Hello Stephen! Long time reader first time caller. Quizzing is very much a family pastime. Every summer at the beach house we would have a big extended family Trivial Pursuit game – me as host – and my dad or mum would always win. The real inspiration came in 2006, though: the year my dad went on RockWiz. His celebrity teammate was Kate Ceberano, and the victory was comfortable.

SH: It would seem that you were destined to come up with the TikTok 10! But what was the impetus for beginning it? And – I have to ask – why do you do it in your car?

MG: I was 24 and TikTok was really starting to erupt as the video app of choice for gen Z (and millennial cuspers like myself). More than the app of choice, it was almost like TV – people were discovering their communities and subcultures on it, they were getting their news and documentaries from it. I had the same nagging you would probably have in my position: where’s the game show? That new year I’d made a resolution to do some video diaries for mindfulness, and in doing so realised that the door of my Smart car perfectly cupped a Google Pixel 5 (other tiny cars and smartphones are available), so the setup was perfect. It also helped the general format of the show – the set was distinct, but portable. I also think a lot of successful TikTok content has appeal in its personal, lo-fi quality. Where a lot of quiz shows thrive off their intimidating vibe (looking at you Gleeson and Mastermind), it felt like the setting would make it approachable.

SH: By now, how many questions do you think you would have written for the TikTok10?

MG: The show’s on indefinite hiatus for now but I’ve produced 498 standard episodes, so 4980. There’s also been a theme week, Christmas specials, sponsored episodes, plus I’ve done around 50-100 custom videos for people to use as gifts. I’d say we’re looking at well over 5000.

SH: Whoa! Is the workload ever too much?

MG: It did become that. I started making them in May 2021. I did 140 in 2021, and 210 in 2022, so that’s, what? 42 out of 52 weeks in 2022? Amazing. I’ve never worked that hard on anything in my life. But this year I had a lot of headwinds hit my life at the same time – being a freelance quiz writer isn’t the most stable of gigs – and something had to make way. I found myself decompressing more without having to write and research a daily quiz show.

I’m not ruling out ever going back to creating videos, but I think if I do, I’d like to make a longer-form quiz show for YouTube or another online platform. There are some wonderful game shows out there on the internet. If you like comedy quiz shows a la Hard Quiz, Dropout.tv (the artists formerly known as CollegeHumor) produce an amazing one called Game Changer, where the contestants have to figure out the game as they go along. There’s also Nebula’s Jet Lag: the Game, which is a kind of Amazing Race for the internet era. These shows are so well-produced and compelling on fairly limited budgets, and I would love to do something similar. But right now there’s no plans for more TikTok10.

SH: What’s the most surprising comment or response you’ve ever had from a follower?

MG: When I was right on the brink of burnout, one comment said I looked “spiritually empty.” Always have been, Bernie!

SH: Ha! What’s the most or touching, or moving, response you’ve ever had from a follower?

MG: The two that come to mind: the amount of people who told me I’d become part of their daily routine. People often sent their lists of daily puzzles – Wordle, New York Times Mini, Bandle, all the websites with an “-le” suffix, and my show was with them! The other one was hearing just how many people found it a comforting habit to maintain during COVID lockdowns. Making it did the same for me.

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; one of the (sometimes-not-so-obvious) great things about quizzing and trivia is its capacity to bring people together. A very valuable thing, particularly in trying times. Meet me back here next week for Part Two of this four-part chat with Miles, when we discuss all aspects of the quiz question writing process: the good, the bad and the ugly…

See you back here for that, next Tuesday!

My EXCLUSIVE interview with game show producer Steve Marshall – Part 7

Posted on 01/03/2022 by Stephen

Hello and welcome back. Last week, we left off just as Steve was talking about his stint writing quiz questions for Million Dollar Minute. And if you’re not too familiar with Million Dollar Minute, I’d recommend you take a look at THIS interview I did with one of that show’s biggest winners, Alex Dusek. Of course, since Steve brought it up, I felt I had to ask him the one question I ask all question writers…

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SH: What do you think is the secret to writing a good quiz question?

SM: It’s probably no real secret, but every quiz question is just a sentence or question, basically. You want to make sure the clue part doesn’t come in too early, or too late (unless the point is to have quick answers, like in a ‘Fast Money’ segment on Sale of the Century.) But it’s mainly just structured so all three contestants can have an equal go at it. And the better ones will pick up that clue quicker than the others. I guess the most important thing we found on Sale and is that a good question should only have one answer.

SH: Yeah.

SM: We’d have a question meeting before every record; I would sit there with David Poltorak, and we’d do it all the time. If the answer to the question is “London”, what if they say “UK”? What if they say, you know, a specific part of London? Do we need to restructure it so there’s only one answer? The last thing you want is to have a contest say “Actually, I was right on that question. But they wrote it wrong.” So, you have to be very careful in that regard. And in those days, there was no Google or internet.

SH: No.

SM: David – who’d be sitting upstairs in the control room during records – had a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica and about eight dictionaries, maybe the World Book Encyclopedia, there’d be atlases.

SH: Right.

SM: What you’d never want to do is to have the show make a mistake and have to address it and then bring the contestant back for another go. It happened occasionally. Very rarely.

SH: Yes.

SM: That’s a part of behind the scenes that a LOT of work goes into.

SH: And you can spend an hour on one question.

SM: Oh yeah, easily, easily! At which point we’d usually go “why don’t we just ditch it?”. Who was the Prime Minister of Australia in 1963? That’s a straight-up answer.

SH: Sure. Steve, you’ve worked in the industry over so many shows and over so many years, you’d have seen a lot of highs a lot of lows… What common mistakes did you see contestants make?

SM: The biggest one on Sale of the Century was being a smartarse. Because we used to see it, occasionally. We had one contestant – and I’ll certainly not name him – but he was an annoying guy on air and he made smartarse quips and one-liners in between the questions… I used to say to him, “Just pull it back a bit. Just answer the question. People don’t like that.” But the audience would watch Sale of the Century and the ratings would go up if somebody was winning each night… Because the audience loved seeing people win a lot. But they also used to watch when the not-so-likable contestants were on, hoping they’d lose! That was probably the biggest thing, just be yourself and just be pleasant. If you try too hard, sometimes you can make unnecessary mistakes.

SH: And was that annoying person you mentioned there for a long time?

SM: Yes, he won the lot.

SH: Oh, right!

SM: He was that good. But just to show you how annoying he was… he won the Audi which was an amazing navy blue sports car. And about six weeks after his winning episode went to air, I got a call from the guy at Melbourne Audi.

He said, “I’ve got a problem with this contestant – he won’t pick up his car.”

I said, “Why won’t he pick up his car?”

“He wants a purple one. I told him, he can have navy-blue, silver, British racing green, black, white… But as far as I know, Audi has never made a purple convertible.”

So, I rang the contestant and said “If you don’t pick up the car by Friday, you’re not going to get it”, which was just pure bluff on my part. Eventually, he picked up his car. But he was an excellent player. Unlikable on air (and off, to a degree) but very good.

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Yikes! What a charmer… Of course, I was dying to know the name of that person, but despite all my ham-fisted amateur journalistic probing, Steve never revealed it. He’s too much of a gentleman for that. So we’re just left to speculate… Oh well, maybe next time.

Join me next week for the last instalment of this epic chat, where Steve reveals his TOP TIPS for any aspiring game show contestant. (And they’re great, as you’d expect). Until then, then!

My EXCLUSIVE interview with game show producer Steve Marshall – Part 6

Posted on 22/02/2022 by Stephen

Hello! This week, the conversation takes a bit of a left turn, as we make a detour to peruse the other feathers in Steve’s cap, to examine the other strings to his bow, to check out the other runs on his board…

Well, you get the idea.

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SH: It strikes me that there’s been a lot of variety in your career, Steve. Apart from all the game show producing and writing, you’ve also done loads of radio, under your pseudonym ‘Sergio Paradise’... but these days, you’re doing a podcast, aren’t you?

I should perhaps point out that. although this recording artist was indeed the inspiration for Steve Marshall’s radio alias, this is most definitely NOT a picture of Steve Marshall.

SM: Yeah, well, I stumbled across Titus O’Reily on Twitter, who’s made a real name for himself as a sporting satirist. And I sent him a message one day saying, “That’s your funniest line ever”, whatever it was. And he came back and goes, “Oh, that’s great. I used to listen to the Saturday radio shows. We should get together and do something. Why don’t we start a podcast?” Which we did. And we’ve been doing it for about five or six years now… and we even did a live tour. We did seven cities in seven nights.

SH: Fantastic. What’s it called?

SM: It’s called Titus and Sergio’s Variety Hour. We call it that because it rarely runs for an hour and it contains very little variety. We just talk sport, mainly with an AFL angle, whatever’s going on in the world of sport and anything we feel like talking about really, and generally weekly.

SH: And when you toured it around, what sort of venues did you play?

SM: It was small theatres, it was booked through Mushroom Records. The late, great Michael Gudinski started the comedy arm of Mushroom, and they put together this Titus O’Reily tour and they wanted me to tag along. I put together all the visuals and we did 400 seat theatres in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane. We sold out every one.

SH: That’s awesome! Nice work if you can get it!

SM: Yeah.

SH: Just moving back to the game show world… you next popped up on Million Dollar Minute, which must have been around 2013? 2014?

SM: Yeah. A guy who had worked at Grundy’s for many years (who was actually the copywriter on Sale of the Century before me) was the head writer on Million Dollar Minute when Channel 7 was putting that together. And he rang me and said, “We’re looking for question writers. Do you want to do it? You could do it from home and it’s all pretty easy.” Sure, I’m in. It was good.

SH: Was that the first time you’d written questions?

SM: The first time I’d written them. Back in my later years at Sale, I used to program all the questions. I’d deal with guys like David Poltorak and all the other question writers. They would submit X number of questions per week and we’d go through them. And some would be like, ‘I’m never going to use that one’ or ‘That’s too hard – nobody will have ever heard of that person’. But then you have to program them so they don’t get too repetitive, and all that sort of stuff. So, I had a pretty good head for questions. The Million Dollar Minute questions were very similar to the Sale of the Century ones – they were pretty much straight up general knowledge. And we could use more topical subjects and incidents and people…

SH: Well, it wasn’t just the questions that were similar; the whole show was pretty similar to Sale of the Century, just quietly…

SM: Yes, although it lacked a bit of drama, and there was an X factor that always made Sale….

SH: It was good to see a proper quiz show, though. They’ve seemed to have gone the way of the dinosaurs now, apart from The Chase. But The Chase is a bit weighted against the contestants, I find.

SM: Yeah, but I think quiz shows might come back. Everything on TV comes back eventually… just not the same as it used to be. Somebody will devise a new format. I remember when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire came out. The CEO of Grundy’s called me to his office. He said, “Have a look at this show from England!” I thought “Wow – just imagine, you can phone a friend, LIVE while you’re on TV, to get their answer!” It was completely revolutionary, and the million-dollar figure was a really big deal in those days.

SH: Revolutionary.

SM: Yeah, yeah. And that changed how quiz shows work. Yeah, I think for quiz shows to come back again, somebody’s gonna have to come up with something as revolutionary as Millionaire was in its day… I hope somebody does.

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So do I, Steve – so do I. Can’t say I see anything like that on the horizon at the moment, but as always, we live in hope. We’ll see you back here next week for the penultimate instalment of this chat, in which Steve and I discuss the art of writing great quiz questions, and one of the biggest mistakes he saw contestants make during his many years behind the scenes at Sale…

Interview with ‘Hard Quiz’ question writer Gerard McCulloch – Part II

Posted on 28/03/2017 by Stephen

Last week saw the beginning of my two-part interview with writer / comedian / actor / MC / audience warm up man / game show question writer for Hard Quiz and Family Feud; Gerard McCulloch. And although we’re used to seeing everything run perfectly smoothly on our favourite game shows when they go to air, the process of getting them there can sometimes be a bit bumpy. Not just from the perspective of the host, the contestants and all the technicians working on any show, but from the perspective of a show’s question writers, too….

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SH: Have you ever written any questions – on any shows – that turned out to be controversial?

GM: I follow the Hard Quiz Twitter hashtag as it goes to air, and read the occasional ‘correction’ from viewers. I check every query, and luckily they rarely stand up to scrutiny. A few people disputed our assertion that every Australian postage stamp features a year, but not a denomination (i.e.; value). It’s true – concession stamps for seniors show no value, but years of issue appear, often hidden in microprinting. Someone delightfully emailed the ABC a scan of a ‘Fairy’ stamp, declaring that it didn’t show a year. I told her to look under the toadstool.

I think this is the stamp Gerard’s referring to. Look at under the right side of the toadstool, just where it overlaps the border.

GM: Some of our other Hard Quiz contestants were taken aback by how tangential to the expert topic some of our questions get. It’s true that part of the fun we have with the notion of the ‘hard’ quiz is that the questions can get ridiculously obscure. But at the time of recording, the show had not yet gone to air, so it’s understandable that some guests may have felt miffed at the licence we took. It’s a brilliant moment when a contestant still knows the answer. I would hope that in subsequent seasons, contestants will have seen the show, and know a bit more about what they’re in for.

SH: Have producers ever rejected any questions that you’ve written? If so, why?

GM: All the time! “Seen it before”. “Too easy”. “Too hard”. “It was on The Chase last week”. “Too similar to one that’s already in production”. “Too long”. “Too complicated”. “Too obscure”. “Not suitable for the viewing demographic”… Having questions rejected is part and parcel of being a question writer.

SH: How did you come to be working on the 2014 Australian reboot of Family Feud?

GM: Apart from the questions, all shows need a writer to work on the ‘hostings’, which are the mundane things like introducing the contestants, throwing to the commercial breaks and plugging the show coming up, as the credits roll. Some hosts stick to these these scripts and some don’t, but it usually falls somewhere between the two. They’re mainly reminders to make sure everything happens in the correct order and nothing is forgotten. I filled in on that role for a couple of weeks while my friend Ray Matsen took a holiday, and had so much fun with (host) Grant (Denyer) and the excellent team behind the scenes there that they let me stick around and write questions. Writing Family Feud questions was a bit of a dream come true – I used to love watching the show in its earlier versions when I was a kid. I’ve also filled in as the audience warm-up act there too. I’m hoping the show sticks around until I’ve slowly performed every role in television there. Maybe I could be the lighting guy next.

SH: What specific skills are required to write questions for Family Feud?

GM: The ability to think out of the box. The more original the question, the greater the chance it hasn’t been done before. Questions involving un-provable matters of personal opinion (like appropriate behaviour on a date) are more fun than lists like ‘food starting with B’. Having said that, it’s been a while since they called… maybe too many of my questions got ba-bowwwwwwed.

SH: Are there mistakes or common errors that you see people repeatedly make on Family Feud?

GM: Giving answers that in no imaginable universe could possibly be relevant to the question! It’s funny to see what people come out with under the pressure of the lights and the time limit.

SH: And finally, do you have any specific tips or hints that you could give someone wanting to go on Family Feud?

Continue reading →

Interview with ‘Hard Quiz’ question writer Gerard McCulloch – Part I

Posted on 21/03/2017 by Stephen

Hello, and welcome to my latest EXCLUSIVE interview for HowToWinGameShows.com.

Gerard McCulloch is a writer, comedian, MC, audience warm-up man… and many, many other things besides. In his 20 years in the television industry, he’s written for genres ranging from sketch comedy (SkitHOUSE) to satire (The Weekly with Charlie Pickering), and from award shows (The ARIA Awards, 2002, 2003, 2004)… to telethons (2005 Tsunami Telethon).

But today, I’m talking to him about his work writing for game shows. In this arena, Gerard’s written for Hard Quiz, Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader and Family Feud, among others. I’m really keen to get his perspective on what it takes to put these shows together, and to find out if he has any tips for aspiring contestants. So, here goes! =========================================================================

SH: Gerard McCulloch, thanks very much for talking to me today for HowToWinGameShows.com! When it comes to your game show career, most recently, you’ve been writing for the ABC TV show Hard Quiz. What were the fun parts of that gig, and what were the more challenging parts?

GM: The fun parts were working with a bunch of good mates to develop a whole new format, especially one that wasn’t just a quiz show, but a comedy show built around (host) Tom Gleeson’s persona. The most challenging part was working out exactly how the game should flow, the points applicable at different stages, the ideal number of contestants – we went through many trials of different scenarios before landing on the one we went with.

Every game show has a ‘game computer’, which is the brain that coordinates the images, sounds, questions, answers and scores. This was the first time I’ve sat in on the development of a game computer, and I have a new-found appreciation for how complicated the mechanism is that makes every game show run smoothly.

The second most difficult part related to our show being one that revolved around each contestant having a speciality topic. Maintaining equivalency of ‘an easy question’ or ‘a hard question’ across topics as diverse as Seinfeld to British Field-Marshals was very tricky. And then there was the challenge of appealing to the TV audience playing along at home when dealing with some very obscure topics.

SH: What do you think is the secret to writing a good quiz question?

GM: The perfect quiz question should make those trying to answer it feel like they should know the answer, even if they don’t; and it should be intriguing enough to make those who don’t know the answer curious enough to hear it. In the case of a show like Hard Quiz, if it can inform and entertain at the same time, that’s a big win.

SH: What’s an example of a question you’ve written that you’re really proud of?

GM: Question: I’ve got a forequarter on my 4-burner. What am I doing? Answer: Barbecuing. This was a buzz-in question for Hard Quiz’s People’s Round, where we test the experts on the stuff that normal people know. It’s virtually a riddle. Most Australians would know what a ‘forequarter’ (as in a forequarter lamb chop) and a ‘4-burner’ are, but the reward went to the first contestant to decode the wordplay. Anyone at home who couldn’t figure it out would hopefully enjoy hearing the answer when it came.

SH: As a question writer, what common mistakes do you see contestants making when answering quiz questions on Hard Quiz?

GM: In buzz-in rounds, contestants often buzz in early, and wrongly anticipate the rest of the question. But that’s the risk of buzz-in rounds in any game show – if you leave it a split second longer, you may lose out to someone who guesses correctly.

SH: Back in 2007, you worked on the Australian version of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? How did you find that experience, in general?

GM: I realised that kids these days learn very different things in primary school than what I learned back in the day! I was amazed by how much information I had forgotten, or never knew in the first place. Of course, whenever I felt that way, I knew it would be good fodder for a question.

SH: I’ve always wondered; if the premise is that all the answers could reasonably known by a 5^th grader, how were the questions’ difficulty levels determined? Did you consult the official Australian primary school curriculum?

GM: Yes, we used the Australian primary school curriculum. It varied a little between states and schools, but if we could determine that the ‘average’ student at a given level would have learned that topic, then it was fair game.

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… And that’s where I’ll leave my interview with Gerard this week. Next week, in the second and final part of our chat, we discuss his work on Family Feud, and he has some really great tips for anyone wanting to appear on that show. In the meantime, though, if you’d like to find out more about Gerard and what he’s up to, you can head on over to his home on the web, and he’s also on Twitter, under the handle @DrJavaBeans.

Oh, and if you’re in Australia, and you’re interested in appearing on Series 2 of Hard Quiz, they’re currently looking for contestants! All the details are right here.

So good luck, and I’ll see you back here next week!

EXCLUSIVE interview with Quiz Show Question writer Adam Richard – Part V – The conclusion

Posted on 21/02/2017 by Stephen

The Fabulous Adam Richard

This week, I wrap up my interview with The Fabulous Adam Richard, and I couldn’t let him go without asking about another game show-related string to his bow…

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SH: And finally, in addition to all of this, you also served as one of the two team captains on the 2014 reboot of the popular music quiz show Spicks and Specks. How was that experience?

AR: Glorious. Best job I’ve ever had. I have said this many times, but the axing of that show was a blessing. I would have sat there for 20 years and loved every second of it. It challenged me as a performer, and I really felt like I did the best performance work I’ve ever done on that show. The audience and management were resistant to it before it started, so it always felt like pushing a dung heap up a hill. I have really enjoyed the last couple of years, and I would not be doing what I am doing without that show ending. In fact, it was one of the Spicks and Specks producers, Dan Warner, who asked me to come onto the staff at The Chase Australia in the first place.

SH: Did your experience as a question writer give you an edge there?

AR: I hadn’t written questions for about ten years when I started on Spicks and Specks as a team captain, but having done the show in the preceding seven seasons as a guest, as well as being involved in several episodes of the ABC’s Tractor Monkeys, I had a good sense, as a player, of what worked and didn’t work in a question. You learn from just spewing out facts, that numbers are boring, names are boring. The question needs to have its own little story. The multiple choice round on The Chase Australia is a great opportunity for stories – as is the final round of Hard Quiz. When you’re on a panel show, you’re always looking for a way to get a joke, or anecdote, into the game, and an interesting question will open the door to that. If you’re on a show and you’re not in a timed round, don’t be afraid to throw in a fun fact about how you knew that, what it reminded you of. They always record more than they need, and if you look stupid, they’ll just cut it out, and it will be like it never happened! Oh, if you could only see the horrific things that I have said on TV knowing that they would never ever make it to air! Don’t be afraid of having fun – as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the game. It should be really obvious when you’re allowed to, and if you’re not, then Tom or Andrew or Eddie or Grant will make very sure you don’t derail the game.

SH: Adam Richard, you’re a multi-faceted, multi talented man, and I wish you every continued success in all of these various areas. Thanks very much for your time today!

AR: Thank you Hally Bejawley!

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I’m so grateful to Adam (or Richo Bagitcho as I call him) for his time, and for being so generous in sharing so comprehensively his thoughts, tips, and stories. Thanks again, Richo Bagitcho!

And you can find The Fabulous Adam Richard online at http://adamrichard.com/ and on Twitter, at https://twitter.com/adamrichard.

EXCLUSIVE interview with Quiz Show Question writer Adam Richard – Part IV

Posted on 14/02/2017 by Stephen

The Fabulous Adam Richard

As my chat with The Fabulous Adam Richard continued, there was one question that I simply couldn’t leave out…

========================SH: From your perspective as a quiz show question writer, are there any other tips, hints or pieces of advice you’d give to aspiring quiz show contestants?

AR: Quiz shows don’t just cast for intelligence. If you are boring, you won’t get on, no matter how much you know. You don’t have to be funny, and you don’t have to be a gregarious ‘life of the party’ type of person, just don’t be dull. If you are shy, don’t worry, we all are. Even the most famous people who are great public speakers are often overcompensating for being shy. Just be yourself. Don’t mumble, or be too self-deprecating (what you continually say about yourself, you can end up believing after a while) and most of all, don’t think you have to be someone you’re not. Just be the person you are when you’re with friends and family. Pretend the casting people are all people you know. Aunt Jenny and that cousin’s husband you always talk to at barbeques.

SH: But your question-writing career hasn’t just involved writing questions for TV. Another related venture – that you and I both worked on – was writing questions for the Australian version of the board game Cranium, back in 2001. What are your memories of that?

AR: I remember it was quite silly! Most of us had been working on All Star Squares, where alleged celebrities hung out in a giant noughts and crosses board. I remember carrying on with Catherine Deveny at a meeting where we were coming up with those performance-based questions. There’s a part of Cranium where you play charades, and I remember cackling as we tried to act out a sausage roll. The actual writing part was fairly isolated, as these things naturally are, but remembering that first day, where we played the game and stuffed about in a meeting room, that kept me ploughing through the actual writing of the questions.

SH: Do you ever play the Australian version of Cranium with friends? And win? And if so, do you tell them that you already knew all the questions?

AR: When I was doing the breakfast show at Fox FM in Melbourne, we had a Cranium promotion where a family of listeners won a night playing the game with me! I remember that being a fun night. I think I ended up just ‘hosting’ the game, asking all the questions, making sure people stuck to the rules, rather than participating. Also, making merciless fun of people trying to do charades as a sausage roll. It really is hilarious.

SH: In addition to all of this behind-the-scenes stuff, you’ve also appeared many times onscreen in game show / reality shows; shows such as Celebrity Splash!, Hole In The Wall, and Celebrity Dog School (!) After these experiences, do you have any tips for any aspiring reality show contestants out there?

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EXCLUSIVE interview with Quiz Show Question writer Adam Richard – Part III

Posted on 07/02/2017 by Stephen

The Fabulous Adam Richard

As my interview with Adam continues, he reveals some great tips that will be really helpful for contestants appearing on The Chase, and on quiz shows in general. But first, we discussed the business of writing questions a bit more…

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SH: What do you like about the job of writing quiz questions?

AR: I learn so much! I folded a lot of the interesting facts I learned into a stand-up show last year. Like the fact that bubble wrap was invented as wallpaper. (You’d never get your bond back!) That Australian Rules football was codified before soccer or rugby, making it the oldest football code in the world. I am INSUFFERABLE at parties. I interject with all sorts of bizarre facts. I just played a video game set in the pirate era, in the Caribbean (Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag), and most of the characters were actual historical characters and there were many real events that you play in the game, so of course, I went on a pirate question binge. All of your life can become a question if you are interacting with anything other than social media. Nobody can answer questions about what dish your friend instagrammed a photo of at Nobu last week.

SH: What don’t you like about the job of writing quiz questions?

AR: It’s very time consuming. Staying in the office until well after 10 PM, even later on shoot days, or writing at home until 2 AM (which I did yesterday). Working from home in general is difficult. Prioritising work over the laundry or going to the shops to get stuff for dinner because you have a deadline looming. If I smell and I’m hungry, you know I’m late with a deadline.

SH: As a question writer, what common mistakes do you see contestants making when answering quiz questions on TV?

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